Death toll in Kyiv climbs as violence takes an ominous turn

A protester uses a catapult during clashes with riot police in downtown Kyivv.

Photograph by: SERGEY DOLZHENKO/EPA
, Postmedia News

KYIV, Ukraine — With steel stanchions, wooden clubs, shivs, axes, shovels, baseball bats and large supplies of bricks and Molotov cocktails fashioned out of every kind of bottle, a ragtag army of thousands of protesters vowed revenge against security forces as night fell Thursday on Independence Square after a day of mayhem that left as many as 70 dead, pushing the death toll for the week to more than 100.

The fear of everyone in the Maidan, as Ukrainians call the Kyiv landmark, was that President Viktor Yanukovych was preparing to send the army to clear the activists out of the centre of the capital in a last-ditch attempt to restore order and maintain his increasingly tenuous grip on the country.

If that happens, Ukraine could slide into a Balkans-like civil war that not only pits Ukrainians against Ukrainians but could draw in Moscow, Washington and the European Union.

“We are not Nostradamus so we do not know what comes next. Ask our cabinet ministers,” said a middle-aged man with a soot-covered face and a hammer in his hand who said his name was Evgeni. “We are here to protect this square and to protect this country.”

As Evegeni spoke, similarly armed men beside him, angrily shouted that they were prepared to go on the offensive.

Violence returned to the heart of the Ukrainian capital Thursday after a lull when the activists, who seek closer ties with the West, and Yanukovych’s government, which looks to Moscow for money and political inspiration, accused each other of violating the latest truce. The peace deal had only held for about six hours.

In a possible olive branch to the protesters, Yanukovych said late Thursday that he was willing to hold fresh elections soon. Yanukovych also offered to introduce new government within 10 days.

In another potentially positive development after a day of horror and sadness, parliament declared late Thursday that the police “anti-terorrist operation” ordered by Yanukovych was illegal and and ordered those involved to return to their barracks. Whether they will do so remains very much an open question. In a sinister development that may presage more bloodshed, the government confirmed earlier Thursday that it had given police permission to use live ammunition. Only a few of the protesters have such lethal weapons.

Thursday’s battle appeared to begin when protesters attacked police lines in Independence Square shortly after dawn. Police fell back and then began shooting on the mob as it advanced towards them beside the brooding Stalinist-era architecture of the Ukraine Hotel.

Dramatic images including one in which a medic was shot as a group of medical workers tried to evacuate the wounded were captured by television crews shooting video from their rooms in the hotel. Doctors and nurses working on floors smeared with blood in the hotel lobby spoke of people dying in their arms from gunshot wounds after having been dragged inside by rescuers.

Katerina Indutna, who works for a western insurance company, watched Thursday’s events live on Ukrainian television before joining the throng at Independence Square.

“Today was tragic and I cried,” she said. “But we will win. This is not something I am hoping for. It is something that I know. We were under Russia for so long. We must never be under Russia again.”

The unpredictable battle over the future direction of Ukraine began the day the Soviet Union collapsed but has sharpened greatly in the past few years. The dispute is over whether the country should develop closer ties with the European Union and the West or continue its traditional relationship with Russia.

Complicating the current situation, large numbers of Ukrainians from cities and towns in the west of the country, who strongly favour closer links with the EU, have been arriving in Kyiv to join the battle. At the same time Russian-speakers from the east and south of the country who back Yanukovych have been arriving in Kyiv, too.

“What we have today is a dangerous, escalating situation because for the first time most of those we are treating have gunshot wounds caused by snipers,” said Vasil Poslovsky, a surgeon who had come 300 kilometres from a hospital in the town of Khmelnytskyi, to help the wounded. “A lot of the dead were shot in the head or the heart. Those who survived had been hit in other places. I operated on three men with grave wounds to their abdomens and legs.”

As Poslovsky and two other doctors took a cigarette break from their makeshift clinic metres away from the Maidan, what looked like macabre street theatre swirled around them. Dressed in Mad Max-style protective clothing that included construction and motorcycle helmets, homemade body armour and shields and hockey shinguards and goalie masks, the activists said they are far angrier and more motivated than at any time since the last round of protests began three months ago.

Many of the activists carried or rolled tires that they used to stoke fires that have been burning for days around the square. Others hauled vast quantities of bricks to be put in caches to be thrown later at security forces.

Around camp fires young men openly fashioned Molotov cocktails from empty bottles that they filled with gas.

If Thursday’s carnage is measured by the number of dead, the protesters clearly lost Thursday’s battle. If it is judged by territory regained, the protesters were the victors. They not only quickly reclaimed all of Independence Square Thursday, they also pushed police hundreds of metres back to the edges of the nearby Parliament.

“God gave me life and he may take my life away now but I am not ashamed to die for our country,” said Anna Stepenko, who had come to the centre of the protest in the square with her mother, Valentina. “Those people who sit at home and watch this on television at a time like this are not Ukrainians.”

Russia has accused the European Union and the U.S. of meddling in Ukrainian affairs by openly siding with the protesters. Those on the streets in Kyiv expressed similar outrage at what they regard as Russian interference in their affairs. They believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been pushing events behind the scenes. They claim that Putin has demanded that Yanukovych crack down hard on those opposed to his regime.

“I watched Russian TV yesterday and I said to myself, ‘What?’” Stepenko said. “It is such a completely different story that it is no wonder that they think Ukrainians are crazy.”

After the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Poland held face-to-face meetings with Yanukovych on Thursday, the EU announced is was imposing travel sanctions on those Ukrainian officials they believe responsible for this week’s violence. Canada also responded to the continuing violence in Kyiv by expanding its travel ban on senior Ukrainian government officials and threatening economic sanctions.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Canadians continue to be outraged by the continuing violence in the Ukrainian capital. “For months, our government has delivered a strong message to the Ukrainian government that its citizens must be allowed to exercise their democratic right to peaceful protest without being subjected to deadly force and appalling brutality,” Harper said in a statement. “The outrageous violence being witnessed by the world must cease, and we hold the regime responsible for these actions against its own citizens.”

A handful of those drawn to the Maidan looked very out of place compared with the gangs of the people there who were spoiling for a fight. One of them, 57-year-old Natasha Karynenko, had come alone to the square even though doing so put her life in peril.

“I had to be here to show solidarity as a Ukrainian because I feel so bad for our country,” the soft-spoken, elegantly dressed librarian said. “The government is calling us bandits and terrorists but this isn’t true. This is a country of educated people such as teachers and musicians. Yet look what they have to do now.

“I have friends who are both Ukrainian and Russian. I want us to be unified, but not under Moscow. (Vladimir) Putin wants to keep Ukraine in Russia’s orbit.”

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